


The Lioness Still Has Claws

by La Reine Noire (lareinenoire)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Ableism, F/M, Household Bureaucracy, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Internalized Misogyny, Sisters Doing It For Themselves, Tywin Lannister's A++ Parenting, bad life choices, lady friendships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:54:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26296015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lareinenoire/pseuds/La%20Reine%20Noire
Summary: Genna Lannister has always loved her brother, Tywin. That doesn’t mean she hasn’t learned how to lie to him.
Relationships: Joanna Lannister/Tywin Lannister
Comments: 9
Kudos: 84





	The Lioness Still Has Claws

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tywinning](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tywinning/gifts).



> Written for the July 2020 ValyrianScrolls Secret Santa. Thanks so much to silverscream for beta-reading!

_252 AC_

_Casterly Rock_

Genna knew where she would find her brother after the feast.

It was his place--a lonely tower room in one of the oldest parts of Casterly Rock, long given over to storage and disuse. Except that Tywin had made this one room his own, with thick Myrish carpets and a heavy wooden chair.

Tywin was seated in the chair now, glaring at a particular patch of floor that had deeply offended him.

“You did your best,” said Genna.

“Go away.”

“I just wanted to thank you.”

“What for?” snapped Tywin. “It didn’t work.”

“There is _one_ thing to like about this match,” Genna ventured after some moments of silence. “Emmon Frey has no lands, so we must needs stay here.”

“You think I will house that... _Frey_...here when I am lord?” Tywin asked, a chill in his voice to rival the stories they’d heard about the Wall. “Such a marriage will bring shame on you.”

“Tywin!” Genna glared down at him, aware that she could only do it because he was still sitting. “Nothing in me has changed. Nor will it, even if I should marry Emmon Frey. And if you truly believe that, I have nothing more to say to you.”

He said nothing. Tears welling in her eyes, Genna started toward the door

“You’re wrong,” he finally said as she reached the doorway. “You’ll always have something else to say.”

Genna slammed the door behind her.

A week later, she found a bound fair-copy of what she realised was the account book for the entire Rock, or at least the template from which their lord father’s steward created his own accounts. With it was a note in Tywin’s writing. _Learn it well if you’re to be my steward_.

It was the closest Tywin would ever come to an apology.

Instead, in a surprising show of strength, their father contrived to have him sent to King’s Landing to serve as cupbearer to King Aegon, and Tywin departed before the turn of the year. Within a few months of his departure, Genna had learned the account books almost as well as their father’s steward and had begun double-checking his sums. By the time she and Emmon Frey were married, the steward had retired and Genna had quietly taken over. There was no chance that Lord Tytos would let her leave, even if Emmon had possessed lands of his own.

Her husband was a dolt, for certain; but that only meant he let her do as she pleased. Her father was besotted with a chandler’s daughter from Lannisport, but so long as he saved his indiscretions for the bedroom, Genna was willing to ignore the woman. That did not last, but it was pleasant for a time.

Every week, she wrote to Tywin. The letters were far too long--she didn’t always know what was or wasn’t of import--but she knew he read every word. He then sent instructions to Kevan, who obeyed them to the letter. Genna was not permitted to read them, but Kevan had never been the most observant, and she soon had a copy of the key to his writing desk and perused his correspondence as she pleased. But there was one thing she always left out of anything she wrote to Tywin.

Genna was happy. And, much as she adored Tywin, he would never have forgiven her that.

***

_263 AC_

_King’s Landing_

It was the first time Genna had been alone with Tywin since his departure from Casterly Rock more than ten years before. Oh, he had returned in triumph twice over, first from the Stepstones with a knighthood; then, from Castamere with the lion of Lannister’s pride restored, but in all those days of feasting and celebration, there had been no time for his once-treasured sister.

What moments Tywin had to himself, he gave to his betrothed, their cousin Joanna. She had been at court with him since the tragedy that marked the end of Aegon the Unlikely’s reign and the beginning of Jaehaerys II. Genna might have gone with her, had she not already been promised to Emmon. From what Joanna told her of court, she had no regrets.

Their time in King’s Landing to celebrate the wedding had confirmed this for countless reasons that made her burn with rage. And now, finally, Tywin had managed to catch Genna alone, and it was the last thing she wanted.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Tywin informed her.

Genna rolled her eyes. “What newly wedded husband wants a sister dogging his footsteps? Besides, I see Joanna all the time.”

“I am not Joanna.”

“Aren’t you?” Genna placed her hands on her cheeks in a mummer’s expression of shock. “I thought the two of you were one flesh now in the eyes of gods and men, or am I wrong?”

“ _Something_ is wrong, Genna, and you are going to tell me what it is.”

“If you already know, why bother asking me?”

“I _don’t_ know,” he spat. “I had assumed you would tell me. Joanna certainly hasn’t.”

Had the circumstances been anything else, Genna might have cursed her good-sister for this bind. But she knew what she had seen, knew all too well what it meant.

“If you love her,” said Genna softly, “then for the gods’ sake, get her away from here. I know Princess Loreza’s told you, and the queen too, for all that you listened to either of them. Listen to _me_ , damn you,” she snapped, remembering what she’d witnessed on his wedding night.

The king, Lord Baratheon, and Lord Arryn had carried Joanna from the Small Hall up the stairs toward Tywin’s chambers in the Tower of the Hand, while Genna and the other ladies took up the pursuit with Tywin. Somehow, the king had managed to draw Joanna away from the others, locking them on the far side of the bedchamber door where they laughed and shouted drunken jests at him about the Northern custom of the lord’s first night. Only Genna’s recollection of a hidden servant’s door brought her into the chamber in time to see the king shove Joanna against the bed, his intentions clear as Myrish crystal. 

When he caught sight of Genna, he froze. Later, she would wonder if he considered having the Kingsguard kill her for her presumption. But Joanna had her wits about her and brought a velvet-wrapped wine flagon down on the back of his head before shouting, with a perfect edge of panic, “Ser Gerold, Ser Barristan, help us! The king’s had too much wine!”

King Aerys collapsed to the ground like a puppet without strings as the two White Knights broke the lock and charged in.

Joanna collapsed into Genna’s arms in what might have been a real swoon, and Genna snatched up one of Tywin’s bedrobes from the clothespress, wrapping it tight around her cousin and the wine flagon still clutched against her. The Kingsguard hardly noticed, so intent were they on carrying the unconscious king from the room. “I’m here,” she murmured, “I’m here. You’re safe. I won’t let him get anywhere near you again, you hear me.”

“Don’t tell Tywin,” whispered Joanna. “I want your word, Genna. You must give me your word.”

“But...” She couldn’t unsee it, and how else could she keep it from Tywin? “But he can protect you.”

Joanna looked up at her with eyes green as summer leaves, yet knowing all too much. “Don’t be a fool, Genna. He can’t. Not from the king, not if he is to keep his head. Unless I give you leave, this goes with you to your grave.”

Her hand gripping Joanna’s tightly, Genna nodded. “I so swear.”

When the rest of the ladies entered with a half-disrobed Tywin, they found Joanna reclined on the bed in an artfully unlaced shift. Somehow, Genna paused to give her brother a quick hug, whispering as she did, “Be gentle with her.”

Tywin had glanced after her in brief confusion, but Genna was certain her cousin would distract him thoroughly. It being Tywin, however, she supposed she was merely delaying the inevitable, and now he had finally caught up with her in spite of her efforts.

“He is the King. I am his Hand.” A mere hairsbreadth from the throne, from ultimate power. If he played his cards right, a daughter of his could marry young Prince Rhaegar and make him the grandfather of kings. “I will not resign. There is so much to be done, so much _I_ could do--”

“At what price?” asked Genna. “Joanna won’t force your hand, but you _must_ make a choice.”

“Has he touched her?” The words were barely more than a whisper, but she could hear in the shadows of her mind the chords of ‘The Rains of Castamere’.

“If he had, what would you do? What _could_ you do?” Prince Rhaegar was scarcely out of swaddling-clothes and there were no other Targaryens left, though there were families aplenty who could claim some dragon blood here and there. The Baratheons, the Velaryons, the Arryns, nearly all the great houses of the Seven Kingdoms, as one might expect. Aerys had come into his throne less than a year ago--young, handsome, and charming. But Aegon the Unworthy had also started that way, and it had not taken long for his rule to decay.

She kept her eyes fixed on the great golden lion Tywin was presently using as a paperweight. “I know nothing of what you speak. That is between you and Joanna, and I will not interfere.”

“And yet you order me to leave court with her.”

“You asked me to tell you what I thought. What you do with it is your concern.”

In the end, Tywin did not resign as Hand, nor did he leave court. Instead, Queen Rhaella counterfeited the wronged wife, declared that she would not allow her royal husband to bewhore her ladies, and ordered that Joanna leave her service, along with the young yellow-haired daughter of Lord Mooton who _had_ found her way into the king’s bed that same night (willingly, by her account). Behind the doors to the queen’s suite of rooms, it was made clear that Joanna was to be accompanied always by either Genna, the Dornish princess Loreza, or the queen herself, while Melissa Mooton spent her nights entertaining the king until she and Joanna departed the city through different gates, each headed home in at least the semblance of disgrace. As the Lion Gate disappeared into the autumn fog behind them, Joanna began to laugh, the sound completely devoid of humour.

They ruled the Rock together as Tywin ruled the Seven Kingdoms in King Aerys’ name. Oh, the orders all had Kevan’s name on them, but it was Joanna who dictated them, and Genna who found the coin. Genna had already taken the young Dorna Swyft as one of her ladies-in-waiting in addition to a hostage for her father Harys’ good behaviour, but it was Joanna who planned her wedding to Kevan. She even contrived to have Genna present when she informed Kevan, on Tywin’s orders, that he was to present himself at the sept in a month’s time to be married. Genna would never forget the gobsmacked expression on her brother’s face. The memory would sustain her through a great many times when a fist might have improved it.

Tywin stole a month each year to spend at Casterly Rock with Joanna, but they both seemed content enough to write back and forth, spending a small fortune on messengers and ravens, and seeing one another during royal progresses and at other people’s weddings. Genna became an aunt in addition to a mother, several times over, and found herself organizing maesters, septas, and all manner of other necessities for a vast brood of children.

Joanna was some six months gone with her third child when Genna found her in Tywin’s study, a letter pressed against her heart.

“He wants to know when I think the twins should come to court,” she said after Genna closed the door.

“You knew he would ask sooner or later.”

“It’s too soon. They’re too young.”

“Tywin went to court when he was nine.”

“That was a different king.” Joanna folded the letter and crossed the room to place it carefully in one of the drawers of Tywin’s enormous desk--hers, while he was in King’s Landing, organised to her standards. Genna had noticed several years earlier that Tywin had stopped moving things around; not that she would say a word to either of them.

There were shadows beneath Joanna’s eyes. This pregnancy had been more difficult than the last, though they were quite certain at least that she was carrying only one. _The twins scarcely felt like two children_ , Joanna had told Genna some weeks before as they watched Jaime and Cersei chase seagulls. With Cersei’s hair tied back, one could scarcely tell them apart. Joanna had insisted on supervising their education personally despite all of Genna’s protests, and it sometimes seemed as though the only way to stop their incessant questions was to let them run in circles until they tired themselves out.

“Joanna, do you fear him even now?” Genna asked after some moments of silence. “Surely his days of chasing ladies-in-waiting are well behind him.”

“Some men never tire of that,” said Joanna with a grimace. “Genna, do you remember how we used to laugh at Lady Brax complaining incessantly of her back while she was with child?”

“Just because you understand it now doesn’t make it any less amusing in retrospect, so hush now,” Genna informed her, leading her to the more comfortable seat by the window. “It means he’s strong and healthy even if he’s kicking your spine.”

“You sound almost as sure as Tywin.”

“Don’t tell him that. But tell me, Joanna, you know of Tywin’s plans for Cersei. Why shouldn’t she go to court?”

“Not alone.” Joanna looked at her. “The queen can’t protect herself, let alone her ladies. If Cersei is to go to King’s Landing, you must go with her.”

“Me?” echoed Genna. “But I’m needed here.” Casterly Rock would fall apart without her, even if only she and Joanna knew that.

“Aye, you are. But Cersei needs you more.” Joanna looked into Genna’s eyes and smiled. “Have you wondered what it might be like to take charge of a queen’s household?”

Those were the moments when Genna wondered if Lann the Clever was watching and laughing in pride at his blood.

Instead, Joanna’s water broke early, the babe turned in the womb, and none of the three maesters ordered on pain of death to attend her could save her.

Tywin took the twins and departed Casterly Rock within a month of the funeral. When Genna tried to protest that she ought to go with them, he reminded her of her place in a tone that brooked no argument.

Three years later, she watched as King Aerys laughed in Tywin’s face at the prospect of his son marrying Cersei. Had the queen been there, Genna wondered if it might have gone otherwise, but she was in the Red Keep with her newborn son, Prince Viserys, after so many lost babes. Prince Rhaegar had the grace to apologise the following day, but there were some cuts that went too deep.

When Genna apologised, it was not to Cersei but to Joanna. _I didn’t fight him hard enough. You were the only one who could_.

***

_286 AC_

_Casterly Rock_

The girl was little more than a child. So too, for that matter, was Tyrion. _Gods help us all, what has that idiot boy done?_ She’d had a garbled, disjointed tale from Jaime, sounding more like the greenest of squires than a knight of the Kingsguard. Something about whores and crofter’s daughters. _I never thought he’d_ marry _her! And now Uncle Kevan knows and he’s going to tell Father…_

“That was your first mistake,” Genna informed him. “You should know better than to let these trifling errors reach your uncle’s ears, let alone your father’s. Your sister knows better. Even _Tyrion_ knows better, or at least I thought he did. Sometimes, I swear to all the gods, Jaime, I wonder…”

She didn’t finish the sentence. She never did, even in the privacy of her thoughts.

“Where’s Tyrion? Where’s the girl?”

What she intended to do, she was never able to figure out, for Tywin had found them first. Tyrion and the girl he thought he had married were dragged before him in one of the lower chambers of the Rock to be punished at his pleasure. Genna did not join her brothers; her responsibilities lay elsewhere, in the aftermath.

It took her nearly an hour to find the girl. Tywin had last been seen leaving the barracks, Kevan and Tyrion in tow. Jaime had left some time earlier, headed for the tiltyard. Genna suspected he was still there, taking out whatever feelings he had left on a string of unfortunate guardsmen. So Genna searched the barracks one room at a time. In the tenth, she found her quarry.

The girl lay on the floor, curled tightly like a snail. Surrounding her was a small fortune in silver coins. Something relaxed just a little in Genna. There would be no trace of her if she had died. That was not Tywin’s way.

The girl gave a shudder at the sound of her footsteps. “There’s no more of that,” Genna told her quietly. “And it could be far worse. That’s good silver.”

“Worse,” was all the girl said, and even that Genna could barely hear. She was Tyrion’s age, possibly even younger.

One of the servants was tasked to collect all the silver. A quick glance round the barracks and Genna recalled that there were thirty guards in this section. All her servants knew how carefully she kept the accounts; none would be so foolish as to steal on her watch.

At least so she thought. She saw the servant hesitate, and stepped forward to intercept what she realized was a single golden dragon amidst the silver. _Thirty-one, not thirty_.

“How did this come to be here?” Genna asked, looking down at the girl.

She met Genna’s eyes for the first time, her own as blue as cornflowers. Beneath the dirt and tears, she was pretty, in a common sort of way. “After the guards, the...Lord Lannister, he...” she stopped, took a breath, and spoke again. “It was Lord Tyrion. The last of them. A gold piece, he said. Because—”

“—Lannisters are worth more,” Genna finished. “Keep it. You earned it. And set aside some of that silver to see a cunning woman before you leave the city. The last thing you’ll want is a bastard in your belly.” Another thing Tywin would not think about. “She can give you something for the pain too.”

“Why are you here?” asked the girl. There was defiance in the set of her chin as she took the purse and the roughspun gown Genna’s servant held out to her. She might survive the night after all. “You’re too fine to be talking to the likes of me.”

Genna sighed, looking down at what she realized was blood on the floor. “Because I am the one who cleans up the messes.”

That night, she found Tywin on the balcony of his solar, glowering into the blackness of the Sunset Sea. “A harsh lesson,” she said.

“A necessary one.”

She made a noise that wasn’t quite a word.

“You disapprove.”

“There were better ways.” When Tywin didn’t respond, Genna moved closer. “Tyg fathered a bastard at fifteen; Gerion at thirteen. They needed no such lessons.”

“They did not marry their whores.”

“A drunken septon in a tavern bedchamber. Hardly a legally binding marriage.” Genna did not need to ask if the septon was dead. There would be no witnesses to this shame. No doubt the only reason the girl was not dead was that Tywin had forgotten her the instant he left those barracks. Not like the chandler’s daughter who had found her way first into their father’s bed, and then into the family treasury.

Their father had died a few short years after Joanna returned with her to Casterly Rock, and when Tywin arrived for the funeral, it was in advance of the entire royal court. If the king and queen had been there, Genna was certain Tywin would have been more discreet, but they were travelling slowly, making of their journey a royal progress, and were due to arrive six weeks later, in time for Tywin’s investiture as Lord of Casterly Rock.

In the meantime, he had other concerns. And it was one of those concerns that brought Kevan and Genna to the main courtyard in the middle of the otherwise uneventful morning after Father’s funeral.

The guardsmen in red-and-gold brought the woman forward, her sobs echoing strangely in the silent courtyard. For a moment, Genna did not recognise her at all. She was covered up, for a start, without a scrap of finery on her gown, nothing to draw attention to her. No rouge on her cheeks or red on her lips, not today. Even her hair looked drab.

She sank to her knees. “My lord, I beg you, I’ll never trouble you again. Just let me leave.”

“You will leave,” said Tywin. “But you will take nothing with you.”

“Of course,” she mumbled, rising to her feet and dropping the satchel she’d clutched in her hands. It hit the paving-stones with the unmistakeable thud of coin.

“I said nothing.” Tywin’s voice was as icy as the wind. He nodded to the guards.

One reached forward and ripped the woman’s gown down the front. She let out a shriek, but two other guardsmen pinioned her arms. A small fortune in jewels and coins spilled from the lining of the dress onto the cobblestones.

“Not only a whore but a thief as well,” said Kevan, sounding disapproving as any septon. Genna tried to calculate how much she’d managed to hide and was grudgingly impressed. “Strip her,” said Kevan, after a brief glance in Tywin’s direction. “Completely.”

“No!” wailed the woman, even as the guards tore her undergarments away, leaving her naked and sobbing. “I beg you, my lord. Mercy!”

Someone laughed. Mercy from Tywin Lannister? The sun would sooner turn backwards.

Tywin did not speak. Instead, it was Kevan who pronounced the sentence. “You will atone for your crimes. For the next fortnight, you will walk from that gate to the Lannisport docks that the citizens may look upon you in your nakedness and your shame.”

The woman was still crying, desperate, soundless sobs. “What then?” she finally asked.

Tywin shrugged. Kevan gave her a scornful look. “That is between you and the gods.”

Genna had watched in silence. That the woman deserved her fate was without question; she had brought shame on their lord father and his court by her very presence. But there was an unsettling glee in Kevan’s eyes wholly unlike his usual, dull expression. Tywin, of course, was stone-faced. She expected no less of him then, nor now, as he looked at her, unimpressed, the setting sun deepening the lines around his mouth.

“Have you something useful to say, Genna? If not, you would do well to remember that Tyrion is _my_ son. You have sons of your own; tend to them.”

“He will not forget this.”

“Good. That was the point.”

She left him shortly afterward and went to bed. The next morning, she received word from the captain of the _Feathered Kiss_ , a swan boat out of the Summer Islands, that the passenger she had sent was aboard.

_Where would you go?_ _I want to learn to read_.

She had only asked the question out of idle curiosity, but the answer surprised her enough that she arranged passage for the girl on the next ship bound for Oldtown. The sum was trifling, and the girl did not thank her, only gave her a long look through slitted eyes.

_Good_ , Genna had thought at the time, _you’ll need that too_.

And with that, she returned to her duties.

**Author's Note:**

> Given that one of the main objections to Emmon Frey as a match for Genna Lannister was that he was a second son who did not stand to inherit (not that that means much when Walder Frey is your father), it seems probable if not likely that the two of them remained at Casterly Rock. I like the idea of Genna being the actual person in charge even if Kevan is on paper, just because I like her better.
> 
> I’m perhaps embroidering a little in having Genna take responsibility (of a sort) for Tysha after Tywin’s horrifying treatment of her, but I like to think the story has laid the groundwork for her knowing enough to take an interest. I’m sure there are plenty in the fandom who believe the ‘realistic’ version would have Tysha die of exposure or starvation or something equally grisly, but I have decided to go for a rather less bleak alternative.


End file.
